Awesome Kids Party Ideas on a Budget FREE PRINTABLES

If you have kids, then it goes without saying that at some point this year they will have a birthday. It’s inescapable 😉 Are you going to give them a party? Probably. Thought about what that party might entail? Probably not. Nor have we after last year when we had the best kids karaoke party. Now we’re all out of ideas. So we’re going to trawl the interwebs and wrack our brains to come up with some awesome kids party ideas for your budget. What you’ll need to weigh up is how much time you have vs where you can save money by doing a bit of DIY to make your theme come to life.

scroll down for awesome ideas to do a Superhero / Pirate / Disney themed party…

Venue

Obviously the cheapest venue is your own home. However, it could be that you don’t have the room or live too far away from the bulk of your invitees. School / church / community halls often have very reasonable rates to hire their space for a few hours. Just make sure you factor in set up / clean up times into your booking timings. There’s nothing worse than rushing to get everything ready or having to clean up at break-neck speed after an exhausting two hours of kids running riot! Alternatively, ask friends or family if they’d be willing to host (it could be their present to the birthday gal/guy).

Face Painting

These will add colour and fun to any party theme. Get them cheaply here. You don’t have to be particularly artistic, practice a few designs beforehand and only offer those – don’t take requests, then there can be no disasters.

Balloons

Everyone loves balloons, they’re such an important part of every kids party. Make them work even harder by jazzing them up with cheaper supplies – like stickers or glitter. A friend told us about a place similar to JungleJumps where they found bounce houses for their kids birthday parties, it sounded like a great idea so we checked it out.

Cakes

If you have some creative baking skills, you can save some money easily on cakes – and create something totally unique for your theme or child. Not that confident? Grab a ready-to-mix cake making kit and then decorate the cake with a few themed sugarcraft items. These can be expensive (although far cheaper than a shop bought cake with similar decorations). Or you could simply use some of your child’s toys that relate to your theme. Make sure they’re run through the dishwasher first to clean them!!

Quick Tips

Consider doubling up with a pal whose birthday is near your child’s

Shop around for good deals

Send e-vites rather than buying paper invites

See if anyone can lend you things to use as decorations, games, music etc.

If you’re going to be making crafts, use the finished product as a party favor!

Themes

Do remember that you don’t necessarily need a specific theme. Often all the kids are interested in are the candles, the balloons, the games and cake. The rest is often just for us adults to enjoy. That said, a really well honed theme and ideas can make your child’s favourite cartoon character/superhero/colours come to life and they will appreciate the magic of a really well planned birthday party.

TOP TIP: We would make one suggestion though – instead of keeping to just one character, for instance, try to go with the whole genre. This way you’ve got more choice on what you buy – rather than having to fork out for the only Cinderella paper plates, if you go for a Disney theme, you can shop around more.

So here are some cracking ideas on making an awesome theme for your party…

Kids Party Ideas

Superhero Party

Decorations:

Make a city backdrop by cutting out building shapes from big cardboard boxes, painting them black and then adding some yellow/white windows. A really cheap way of decorating a large space.

A great way of adding a cartoon feeling is to add lots of action words – print them off at home and colour in with the kids. Think “POW”, “OUCH!”, “CRASH”, “BOOM”.

Party Activity:

Make superhero capes or masks – get cheap masks and decorate with paints/sequins/stickers/pens.

Then use your cityscape backdrop as a photobooth!

Food:

Try and find a superhero themed cookie cutter to make shaped sandwiches

Add printout cartoon decorations to jugs of water/fruit juice

Making anything ‘super’ by adding toothpicks with superhero printouts wrapped around the top of them.

A star cookie cutter and a round one will help you make any food into Captain America’s shield

Face painting – make each child into their favourite superhero with some clever face paints (buy them here cheaply)

Disney Party

Whether a prince or princess, a hero or a villain; from Dory to the Mad Hatter, there is bound to be someone in Disney that you child admires. The beauty of a Disney themed party is that there is so much on the market that you should be able to source party supplies cheap or – as we discovered – find literally TONNES of ideas on Pinterest or parenting blogs. Here are just a few:

Any food can be Disney-fied, just think about the name of the food and how it could relate to one of the oodles of Disney characters. Like Aurora’s Forest Fruits or Ariel’s Sea Cucumber Sticks, Mr Potato Head chips, Sven sandwiches… You get the idea.

Pirate Party

A perennial favourite, pirates are fun for boys and girls of all ages. Don’t forget that Peter Pan counts as pirates – so if you have insistent fairies/princesses/mermaids coming to the party – they’re covered! Phew!

Decorations:

Paint paper plates, stick on googly eyes and long colourful tails and you have jellyfish decorations!

Cardboard boxes with pirate-style labels (Rum, Crackers for Polly, Tea, that sort of thing), throw over a net for added realism.

Grab some more cardboard boxes and make them into ships!

Party Activity:

Tin Can Toss Collect tin cans and decorate with skull and crossbones. Throw balls to see if you can knock them all over.

Musical Islands – just like musical chairs, but use hula hoops instead of chairs and call them islands.

Food:

Cheese and Crackers for Polly

Jelly boats (made from hollowed out orange halves – when jelly is set, cut into half again, and stick in a toothpick with a sail on it)

Babybel pirates – take off half the red wax and draw on pirates face and eye patch with a black food pen.